Previous Owner Horror Stories - Let's Hear 'em

OldManKamps

OldManKamps

New member
So most of us by now I'm assuming have bought their 4Runners used. Let's hear your horror stories and the strange issues you found when after you bought it!

I'll start. My previous owner was the KING of all shitty handymen. The "fixes" and problems he made while he owned it are unbelievable. I'll start in chronological order of the issues I found. So right off the bat, the ABS light is on. So I look into it further, checking all the fuses and whatnot. Everything checks out till i get under the vehicle. I discover that this guy disabled his ABS by CUTTING the wires to the front brakes. Rather than pulling the fuse, he permanently disabled it. Next up, I realize that the blower motor isnt working! And neither is the rear defroster. So I check out the blower motor to see what's going on, and I find mysterious electrical components hanging down under the glove box. This leads me to discover that this guy had a leaky evaporator in the cooling unit. So instead of removing it like a normal human being, he BROKE open the cooling unit and tore it out. In order to prevent ridiculous airflow coming in, he insulating taped it up and left the electrical components stuff up there. Now onto the blower issue. I take apart the whole dash in the middle and find an unplugged wire. I look back there and manage to cram my big hands in and plug it back in. Voila! A/C light comes on, blower motor blows, defroster works. So for reasons unknown, this guy disabled his entire HVAC system. Winter comes along and my heat doesn't work. Further investigation shows that he managed to break the plastic clip holding the wire for the hot/cold dial. After a while of driving it, I start to realize that there's a burning plastic smell. So I investigate and find that part of the electrical components he stuffed up behind the glove was the resistor for the blower motor!! Melting various plastic pieces behind the dash! :mmph: Now the final issue I found today was the airbox. The PO broke all the bolts holding the airbox in place. I removed the airbox to clean the MAF and found a big hole in the back of the airbox behind the filter! The PO forgot to remove the last bolt and broke a hole in the back of it. I am astounded at this man and his "fixes". So pathetic. A little bit of patience, research, and elbow grease could have easily fixed all of this the right way!

Well thanks for listening, let's hear some of your stories! :first:
 
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Holy cow, makes me really appreciate the fact that the previous owner of my 'Runner actually took care of her instead of being a dumbass.

My dad's 03 Excursion with the 7.3L on the other hand... that's a different story.
 
I hope you got a really good price on that truck.

My previous owner was a smoker. It's a good thing that I gut and clean the interior of every vehicle I buy used. Now there is zero smell, just a few cigarette burns in inconspicuous parts of the carpet to remind me of this 4Runner's smoky past.
 
Can I ask OP why didn't you test some of these things out BEFORE buying the 4runner? As T4R2014 stated I hope you got a good price on it.

If the truck has had so many problems I wonder what it looks like under the valve cover.

I have walked away from many so called good buys before after discovering the myriad of potential and obvious problems for each of them. Check one's emotions at the door.
 
Wow... just wow. Mine just needed a good vacuum and scrub down. And the locks didn't work, but that's from that pesky wire loom going to the rear hatch. Still baffles me that people will sell a filthy car without even trying to make it look nice. Oh, also found $8 in change. Paid for the first car wash!

Emptied the vacuum 3 times from the dog hair, and scrubbed everything including behind the dash. No more funky smells, or sticky surfaces. Now I just need to figure out the AC... everything comes on, and it'll work if I refill it, but it loses it's charge really quickly. So I've got a leak somewhere... yuck.
 
LittleCaesar said:
Can I ask OP why didn't you test some of these things out BEFORE buying the 4runner? As T4R2014 stated I hope you got a good price on it.

If the truck has had so many problems I wonder what it looks like under the valve cover.

I have walked away from many so called good buys before after discovering the myriad of potential and obvious problems for each of them. Check one's emotions at the door.
Click to expand...

First time buying a vehicle and I was a little nervous. I did research on things I knew to look for but I didn't think to look under the glove box and stuff like that! It's hard to do a good once over on a vehicle in a short amount of time! Also, I did pay a good price. $2200 CAD which is like $1500 USD.
A lot of weird issues but she is running great and I wouldn't trade it for anything! :)
 
For my current 4runner, previous owner was a mom w/ 2 kids. she drove it for >100k miles w/o any maintenance and service other than oil change. I had to update a lot of it by the time it came to me.

first owner on my current 4runner was great. He took the car to dealer for all services. However, he had a large dog that tore up the interior. Looking for a interior swap later on.

As for my first 4runner, I bought it right before it blew head gasket first month in. I suspect the previous owner was aware of it before she sold it to me. She was very eager to sell for less than the original asking price.
 
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I don't know if it was the PO but after about 3 months of owning my previous Runner, I found the frame rust hole by the muffler had been filled in with that foam crack filler stuff you buy at home depot. It was then cut to form and bondo putied over then painted. Couldn't even tell it was rusted. Looked pretty good. Someone was on a mission.
 
The previous owner of my sport was the original owner and had it dealer maintained and then had it professionally detailed before selling it to me. Not to mention brand new tires too! Plus a hot daughter.... I can't complain on that one. Although I did find a French fry that the detailers missed it was delicious. The 99 was just dirty and I didn't really care. The 98 was smoked in and I'm in the process of taking everything out and cleaning it. The 99 limited is pretty clean inside its the outside that's the problem. All the sellers I've dealt with have been pretty up front and honest maybe cuz I threw a wad of cash at them.

Edit: I just remembered that my 02 that was wrecked had a Celine Dion cd in it. I bought it from a guy. I should've taken his mancard
 
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MN4runnerman said:
The previous owner of my sport was the original owner and had it dealer maintained and then had it professionally detailed before selling it to me. Not to mention brand new tires too! Plus a hot daughter.... I can't complain on that one. Although I did find a French fry that the detailers missed it was delicious. The 99 was just dirty and I didn't really care. The 98 was smoked in and I'm in the process of taking everything out and cleaning it. The 99 limited is pretty clean inside its the outside that's the problem. All the sellers I've dealt with have been pretty up front and honest maybe cuz I threw a wad of cash at them.

Edit: I just remembered that my 02 that was wrecked had a Celine Dion cd in it. I bought it from a guy. I should've taken his mancard
Click to expand...

Holy shit man, that's quite the 4runner lineup you got there!
 
since my dad was the original owner he had this mechanic who would work on the truck, when i did my body lift the intake ripped apart. i found that it had been previously mended with electrical tape. I also found an unfused 12v cable running from the battery to the tow hitch connector that was wrapped around the frame, it was frayed in one spot, I think uhaul installed it. I found a bunch of subflower seeds under the center console, but those were from my dads long road trips. other than that nothing strange at all. I also learned that my dad didnt even know about the center diff locker, which is funny to me because I specifically remember going to sedona as a kid and my dad high centered the truck and we had to tip it over this rock to get it going, the center diff locker would have helped haha. granted it was on the stock size 28s with the running boards and everything.
 
I get the feeling that I'm the PO that people talk about in threads like this :o

I have kept in contact with the new owners of several of my vehicles and they aren't always appreciative of my modifications (like welding shock tabs in place of the stock pin hole for the rear shocks). One of my PO's sent me a text like "who did this to the shock mount? I had to grind all that metal off to bolt in a tab." I was like :doh: you could have just bolted your shocks to the tab I welded on and saved yourself the time and the cost of the bolt-on tab. Also had a different new owner contact me to inquire about an aftermarket full float axle, an ADD switch I wired up, etc.

I also seem to buy a lot of vehicles with random aftermarket switches that don't do anything :o I can forgive PO's for stuff like that. The only thing that really grosses me out is sticky messes, food, etc. One of my FJ60's came loaded to the gills with Malamute hair.
 
My '99 limited was pretty clean and well maintained, never had a problem with her until she got totaled.
My current '00 SR5 wasn't bad, but had old oil in it, bald tires, about 1/5 of the coolant it should've had, and the radio was broken. Plus there was a weird noise in the drive train somewhere. Luckily an oil change, coolant, new tires, water pump, and new timing belt solved my issues. No problems now. *Knock on wood*
 
There are too many stories from back in the day, of hack repair attempts I fixed, after the owners tried to "fix" a problem.

A good one was a failed u-joint on a customers truck. The guy went to a Hardware Store, and bought bolts, washers, nuts, and Bailing wire. The two bolts took the place of the u-joint, and the bailing wire was used to lash the bolts together...
 
Sure I got one...previous owner had fried the rings off the pistons...can't prove it obviously but probably neglected oil changes or the such..it started puking oil out the pcv. Then a few lakes later oil burning bad...like a quart every two weeks between the two.

Then a miss...and another miss...and and I drove it that way for almost a year before swapping a jdm motor in. Love toyotas....

Personally saw a touch of oil I the intake after the test drive...asked him about it and he knew nothing, but was a slimy person. But it was clean, low miles, totally rust free in my area which is kinda hard to come by so I took it.

Was young and stupid but oh well, learned from it. And got a truck that will last for years to come now because of it.
 
I've been on both sides of this.. Some quality entertainment possibly, at least for me when I traded these vehicles in;

My 06 Dodge 1500 Hemi had factory ugly 20's. I purchased some 16's I believe. They rubbed the calipers slightly. The company assured me they fit, then refused a return. So I colored the calipers with a sharpy and ground them down until the wheels cleared. Sold the wheels locally a couple days later and traded in the truck with 2 mpg to empty showing on the range meter.

My 2011 Mustang GT had the cheap Chinese transmission (6 speed). It had a rear end howl since day 1 also with optional 3:73 gears. Turned out the bearing was eating the housing away, so they replaced the rear end entirely. The transmission grenaded the day I was trading the car in on a 7500 RPM powershift racing my friends Z06. Factory warranty covered it all and my friend bought the car after it was repaired.

My current 99' 4runner had a slow leak from the transmission. Turned out to be a super hair line crack in the housing from some clown overtightening the drain plug. Sold it for dirt cheap and the guy told me afterwards. He didn't want his $ back, just welded it. The clutch was gone, the 2 driver's doors don't match with the re-paint. Otherwise it's a pretty solid truck and now is perfect.

My 98 Tacoma I got for 2500 bucks with 135k on it; they weren't mechanically inclined. The guy got a cylinder misfire code. He put new plugs in, gapped wrong, broke a couple of the bodies putting the boots on too hard. His wife ran into their garage, the exterior side.. lol. So they were told the frame was bent. I bought it for 2500 off a 3500 asking. The CEL was on, for cylinder misfiring. I replaced the injectors, solved. Put a new fender and corner light in, perfect straight 4x4 extended cab, 5-speed 3.4 Tacoma now with 135k for under 3k.

My drag car (93 foxbody) had SO MANY thing's halfassed by a dreamer trying to do something he shouldn't have. Welded the torque boxes wrong. Welded subframe connectors on with the suspension uneven, smoothed the engine bay and hid wiring harness using 2 inches of filler versus welding holes closed and skinning it. Hacked up dash harness, ruined all factory stereo wiring, broke engine mounts, installed quarter windows wrong and it was leaking, rattle canned over a rusty door, on and on with that car. 5 years later it was entirely fixed and done right.

Bought my 06 5.9 cummins diesel for 17k from a dealership with a CEL showing. Had something to do with ECM power source. It read as the ECU was failing on the truck. They wanted it gone, and Google searches gave me results in minutes that it happens with a bad battery or similar. The clown attendant had not realized diesels have 2 batteries when they detailed the engine bay and reconnected just one. So my test drive flashed the error. I talked them down to 17k out the door on the truck. 2006 5.9 4x4, mega cab 2500 with perfect body and some extra's, 99k miles. Got in with them thinking it had a bad ECU and it was never an issue again. Still own that truck and it's been flawless :bounce:
 
I have been searching for one so I bought a 1996 4runner 2wd SR5 v6 a week ago. Love it!
Driving home after purchasing and the check engine light magically appears...:sobbing:

Pull code with my reader and it is P0303, misfire cylinder # 3. Did not notice because it runs so well, but now that I know I can feel it shaking a bit at idle.

So tonight I finally have some time and will try to diagnose the issue. Fingers crossed it will be spark or fuel injector, something not too expensive.

Previous owner had the vehicle for only 3 months, that should have been a red flag :frusty:

She runs amazing nonetheless, no accidents, clean title all original Yota bumpers, lights, everything. Also got it for the low price of $1700. No regrets, every used vehicle will have problems. Know when to ditch a bad car, or end up married to it.
 
PO to my 4runner left 3-4 Ipods in the glove box because he forgot about them and he was too lazy to clean it out; I gave them back.
 
My story is probably the worst of all,

My previous owner followed the pocket service handbook and did all of the regular maintenence at the dealership at the miles they were due. He drove it for 140k miles without ever being in snow, salt, or heavy water. He kept everything working and the interior spotless.
I picked it up for $1200 because of a bad battery and a faulty O2 sensor causing engine lights.
And the worst part, he had never even engaged 4wd, much less even taken it on a dirt road!

Yeah I lucked out on my 02 SR5 ;)
 
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